Promising blood test for Alzheimer's

Newcastle researchers have shown the potential of a simple blood test to identify the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease in people, before symptoms appear.

The team spent a year studying the levels of nearly 200 proteins in blood from more than 550 people with the disease, but also those with mild cognitive impairment or normal cognition.

They found that measuring the proteins means they can predict with around 90 per cent accuracy those who have the disease in its early stages.

Newcastle Professor Pablo Moscato says it is a considerable step towards a cheap and non-invasive test.

"That can be used for example to screen large populations to screen people who are at risk," he said.

"So people who have a mild cognitive impairment, we would like to try and find changes in your blood that have occurred before you're able to see them with more conventional and more expensive tests like imaging techniques."

He says the test could could change the way Alzheimer's is diagnosed.

Professor Moscato says early detection of the disease is important.

"One of the things that we also expect is that people who are at risk can change some of their lifestyle.

"So some people are saying that, for example, exercise may be one of the things.

"In the future it could be a particular drug is used and then you can follow the action of the drug so it's really giving hope that we can even improve more of these tests."